Extractions: Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo DA VINCI (b. 1452, Vinci, Republic of Florence [now in Italy]d. May 2, 1519, Cloux, Fr.), Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper (1495-97) and Mona Lisa (1503-06) are among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the Renaissance. His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of his time. The Adoration of the Magi

Leonardo Da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci (14521519). It may seem unusual to include Leonardoda Vinci in a list of paleontologists and evolutionary biologists. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/vinci.html

Extractions: L eonardo da V inci (1452-1519) It may seem unusual to include Leonardo da Vinci in a list of paleontologists and evolutionary biologists. Leonardo was and is best known as an artist, the creator of such masterpieces as the Mona Lisa Madonna of the Rocks , and The Last Supper . Yet Leonardo was far more than a great artist: he had one of the best scientific minds of his time. He made painstaking observations and carried out research in fields ranging from architecture and civil engineering to astronomy to anatomy and zoology to geography, geology and paleontology . In the words of his biographer Giorgio Vasari: The most heavenly gifts seem to be showered on certain human beings. Sometimes supernaturally, marvelously, they all congregate in one individual. . . . This was seen and acknowledged by all men in the case of Leonardo da Vinci, who had. . . an indescribable grace in every effortless act and deed. His talent was so rare that he mastered any subject to which he turned his attention. . . . He might have been a scientist if he had not been so versatile. Leonardo's scientific and technical observations are found in his handwritten manuscripts, of which over 4000 pages survive, including the one pictured on the right, showing some rock formations (click on it to view an enlargement). It seems that Leonardo planned to publish them as a great encyclopedia of knowledge, but like many of his projects, this one was never finished. The manuscripts are difficult to read: not only did Leonardo write in mirror-image script from right to left, but he used peculiar spellings and abbreviations, and his notes are not arranged in any logical order. After his death his notes were scattered to libraries and collections all over Europe. While portions of Leonardo's technical treatises on painting were published as early as 1651, the scope and caliber of much of his scientific work remained unknown until the 19th century. Yet his geological and paleontological observations and theories foreshadow many later breakthroughs.

Extractions: The life and work of the great Italian Renaissance artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci have proved endlessly fascinating for later generations. What most impresses people today, perhaps, is the immense scope of his achievement. In the past, however, he was admired chiefly for his art and art theory. Leonardo's equally impressive contribution to science is a modern rediscovery, having been preserved in a vast quantity of notes that became widely known only in the 20th century. Leonardo was born on Apr. 15, 1452, near the town of Vinci, not far from Florence. He was the illegitimate son of a Florentine notary, Piero da Vinci, and a young woman named Caterina. His artistic talent must have revealed itself early, for he was soon apprenticed (c. 1469) to Andrea Verrocchio, a leading Renaissance master. In this versatile Florentine workshop, where he remained until at least 1476, Leonardo acquired a variety of skills. He entered the painters' guild in 1472, and his earliest extant works date from this time. In 1478 he was commissioned to paint an altarpiece for the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Three years later he undertook to paint the Adoration of the Magi for the monastery of San Donato a Scopeto. This project was interrupted when Leonardo left Florence for Milan about 1482. Leonardo worked for Duke Lodovico Sforza in Milan for nearly 18 years. Although active as court artist, painting portraits, designing festivals, and projecting a colossal equestrian monument in sculpture to the duke's father, Leonardo also became deeply interested in nonartistic matters during this period. He applied his growing knowledge of mechanics to his duties as a civil and military engineer; in addition, he took up scientific fields as diverse as anatomy, biology, mathematics, and physics. These activities, however, did not prevent him from completing his single most important painting

WebMuseum: Leonardo Da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci. TIMELINE The master. The first of these, Leonardo daVinci (14521519), was the elder of the two Florentine masters. He http://mexplaza.udg.mx/wm/paint/auth/vinci/

Extractions: Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo DA VINCI (b. 1452, Vinci, Republic of Florence [now in Italy]d. May 2, 1519, Cloux, Fr.), Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper (1495-97) and Mona Lisa (1503-06) are among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the Renaissance. His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of his time.

Extractions: Leonardo was born in 1456 in the small town of Vinci as the illegitimate son of a notary. With fifteen he began an apprenticeship with the most respected painter in Florence at that time, Verocchio. He sat up his own studio around 1478 and moved to Milan in 1482 to ... further indepth information da Vinci, Leonardo

Uffizi - Leonardo Da Vinci LEONARDO DA VINCI. Leonardo da Vinci was surely one of the greatestgeniuses of the Renaissance. As well as a versatile artist (painter http://www.televisual.it/uffizi/leonard.html

Extractions: Leonardo da Vinci was surely one of the greatest geniuses of the Renaissance . As well as a versatile artist (painter) he was also a scholar (engineer, architect and naturalist). Born in Vinci, near Florence in 1452, he began his training under Verrocchio , with whom he painted the "Baptism of Christ" (1470-75) at the Uffizi. Already in his early works, including the 1472-75 "Annunciation" , which is also at the Uffizi in the room named after him, the use of light and shade giving the shadowy effect later known as "leonardesque" can be seen. In this and other famous works, the perspective Michelangelo . He then returned to Milan where he was awarded the honorary title of "painter and engineer to the King of France". It was then that he designed the horseback monument for Captain Giangiacomo Trivulzio. In 1513 he was in Rome to paint the "St. John the Baptist", now at the Louvre, in which the outlines are softened in such a way with the sfumato technique as to create a harmony and a link between the figures and their surroundings. The great artist then did his "Self-portrait", before leaving for Cloux, near Amboise in France, following King Francis I, for whom he painted the magnificent "End of the World". He died in 1519, and has always been remembered worldwide, not just for his artistic works, but also, and perhaps more so, for his many precious writings on the flight of birds, the study of human and animal anatomy, nature, urban construction and inventions which were amazing for his time.

Extractions: Essays Gallery ... da Vinci [Editor's note: much of da Vinci's notebook is filled with highly detailed observations regarding perspective, light, shadow, color, landscape painting, and the human figure. I have tried to select excerpts interesting to the modern artist. Da Vinci's environment was completely different, but it is still quite interesting, and at times quite amusing, to read his advice.] OF THE MISTAKES MADE BY THOSE WHO PRACTISE WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. Those who are in love with practice without knowledge are like the sailor who gets into a ship without rudder or compass and who never can be certain whether he is going. Practice must always be founded on sound theory, and to this Perspective is the guide and gateway; and without this nothing can be done well in the matter of drawing. The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.

Extractions: Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper (1495-97) and Mona Lisa (1503-06) are among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the Renaissance. His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of his time. There has never been an artist who was more fittingly, and without qualification, described as a genius. Like Shakespeare, Leonardo came from an insignificant background and rose to universal acclaim. Leonardo was the illegitimate son of a local lawyer in the small town of Vinci in the Tuscan region. His father acknowledged him and paid for his training, but we may wonder whether the strangely self-sufficient tone of Leonardo's mind was not perhaps affected by his early ambiguity of status. The definitive polymath, he had almost too many gifts, including superlative male beauty, a splendid singing voice, magnificent physique, mathematical excellence, scientific daring... the list is endless.

ArtandCulture Leonardo da Vinci was one of the worlds most celebrated generalists,equally fluent in science and art, and a supreme innovator in both. http://www.artandculture.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ACLive.woa/wa/artist?id=1289

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The Drawings Of Leonardo Da Vinci Presents 28 drawings by the artist with titles and dates. The reproduction quality is good. if you'd like more information on leonardo da vinci (especially historical) check these sites http://banzai.msi.umn.edu/leonardo

Extractions: Because I can find no useful or pleasant subject to discourse on, since the men who came before me have taken all the useful and pleasant subjects and discoursed on them at length, I find I must behave like a pauper who comes to the fair last, and can provide for himself in no other way than to take those things of trivial value that have been rejected by other buyers. I, then, will fill my shopping bag with all these despised and rejected wares, trash passed over by previous buyers, and take them and distribute them, not in the great cities, but in the poorest villages, taking whatever money might be offered. I realize many will call my little work useless; these people, as far as I'm concerned, are like those whom Demetrius was talking about when he said that he cared no more for the wind that issued from their mouths than the wind that issued from their lower extremities. These men desire only material wealth and are utterly lacking in wisdom, which is the only true food and wealth for the mind. The soul is so much greater than the body, its possessions so much nobler than those of the body. So, whenever a person of this sort picks up any of my works to read, I half expect him to put it to his nose the way a monkey does, or ask me if it's good to eat. I also realize that I am not a literary man, and that certain people who know too much that is good for them will blame me, saying that I'm not a man of letters. Fools! Dolts! I may refute them the way Marius did to the Roman patricians when he said that some who adorn themselves with other people's labor won't allow me to do my own labor. These folks will say that since I have no skill at literature, I will not be able to decorously express what I'm talking about. What they don't know is that the subjects I am dealing with are to be dealt with